


Took Us Long Enough

by mushiwiththegoodtea



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Reincarnation, multi-lifetime crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27708643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushiwiththegoodtea/pseuds/mushiwiththegoodtea
Summary: Zuko learns that he is the reincarnation of Aang's childhood friend Kuzon. He also realizes the crush Kuzon had on Aang might not have gone away.(Takes place ten years post canon, which makes Zuko 26 and Aang "22")
Relationships: Aang/Kuzon (Avatar), Aang/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 185





	Took Us Long Enough

**Author's Note:**

> An Explanation Of The Premise
> 
> This is part of what is becoming a collection of fics, where the concept is that the Avatar is able to help other people unlock their own past life memories and/or meet their past lives. Mostly so I can explore headcanons about what characters may be reincarnations of other ones. These mini-fics might be merged into a longer work later, with more worldbuilding about how the unlocking works. 
> 
> For now, we jump right in, with Aang and Zuko sitting down for this past-life meditation together.

“Are you ready?”

“I don’t know. This sounds really stupid, but I’m scared that I was… a bad person or something.”

Aang gave Zuko’s hands a squeeze.

“It’s not stupid. But it’s gonna be fine,” Aang assured him. “And remember I won’t be able to see any of what you see, so it’s up to you what you want to share.”

“Was it scary for you, meeting your past lives?” Zuko asked quietly.

“Yeah, a little,” Aang admitted. “It was intimidating.”

That made Zuko feel a little better. He took a deep breath.

“Okay. Let’s do this.”

“Close your eyes,” Aang instructed. 

Zuko closed his eyes and tried to relax. It wasn’t always easy for him to do, but he listened to Aang’s slow breathing and followed its rhythm. 

The memory began as just sound. There was pounding rain on a wood roof above him, and trees creaking in a howling wind. Then he could feel the chill of the room, and smell damp hay and old wood. Sight came last. He was in a barn, holding large doors shut against the wind. He watched his arm reach out and pull the big wood latch closed. 

He turned, and to his confusion he found himself facing Aang. Aang wasn’t supposed to be here in his memory with him. And it wasn’t the adult Aang he had left a moment ago, it was Aang as young as he’d been when they first met. It didn’t make any sense, the memory was supposed to be his previous life, not one from ten years ago. This Aang was giggling and pulling him by the arm. He followed and tried to look around. This wasn’t a barn he had ever been in.

Appa was behind them, soaking wet as though he had been flying in the storm outside. Without warning the bison shook itself violently and sprayed them both with water and bits of damp fur. Zuko was laughing too now, in a high, childish voice he didn’t recognize as his own. The bison, if it was Appa, was also smaller than he could remember Appa being, with horns that were barely more than nubs. 

“Aw, Kuzon, he likes you!” Aang told him, crying with laughter. He blew a gust of warm wind around them, drying them off.

So this was a past life memory after all. The name  _ Kuzon  _ rang over and over in Zuko’s head. Aang’s childhood friend, from before he was ever frozen, from before the war.

“Thanks for letting us stop here,” Aang was saying. Zuko just nodded. From what he could feel in Kuzon’s perspective, Kuzon seemed shy. When Aang smiled at him his face got warm. 

“You’re welcome,” said Kuzon’s voice. “It seems like it would be really scary to try to fly in that!”

Aang patted Appa’s snout.

“It got preeeetty crazy,” he said with a shrug. “But Appa is a super good flyer. I’ve basically got the  _ best  _ bison out there.”

Kuzon joined him in petting Appa’s snout, and Appa licked his face. It startled him, but both boys dissolved into giggles again. 

Aang had such a cute laugh.

… That was a Kuzon thought, Zuko registered vaguely. It was still true, but Kuzon seemed particularly preoccupied with it. 

It was kind of sweet, actually, witnessing this eleven-year-old’s brain as he developed what was definitely a small crush. He didn’t really blame Kuzon, as embarrassing as it was. Aang had always been charismatic.

They sat down in a haystack and listened to the rain outside. Aang recounted the adventures he had had while flying, before the storm forced them to land. He said he was coming from the Southern Air Temple, where he lived, and going to visit the Western Air Temple for a festival. Kuzon listened in awe, and after a while the memory faded out.

Zuko almost opened his eyes, but a new memory was already taking its place.

He was on Appa’s back, soaring through a clear, sunny sky now. It was the most wonderful thing he had ever experienced. Aang was just below him on Appa’s head, guiding him by the reins in a wide circle over the Fire Nation countryside, and then down towards an expanse of rice fields. They landed on a dirt road in a spray of dust, just outside a farmhouse. Kuzon slid down from Appa’s back and dashed to a woman walking out of the front door. She looked cross, but he put on his best pleading face.

“Can my friend Aang stay with us for dinner?” he asked sweetly. The woman, Kuzon’s mother it seemed, drew a deep sigh.

“Uh, not today sweetie. I think he should… probably be travelling back to his people.” 

Zuko could feel that Kuzon was confused. His mother had never turned away his or his siblings’ friends when they came around for dinner.

“Why not? They don’t mind that he’s here,” he told her. That had been true the last few times Aang had come to visit, so what was up with her? His mother tried to give him a sympathetic look.

“Well… There are some things going on. Grown-up things. There are some laws, Kuzon, that say Air Nomads aren’t supposed to travel here without permission. And… I don’t think your friend has permission,” she explained.

Kuzon was outraged. 

“He didn’t USED to need permission,” he argued. 

“I know, but sometimes laws get changed. It just wouldn’t be a good idea for him to stay.”

Kuzon stormed away, back to where Aang was waiting. 

“My mom says you gotta go home,” he said, kicking a rock. Aang looked a little bummed, but nodded, and gave Kuzon a tight hug.

“I’ll be back soon, okay? Promise.”

As the memory ended, Zuko was left alone with a cold dread. Kuzon didn’t understand what was coming. But Zuko knew. It began with laws tightening, and pushing the Air Nomads back to their temples. And he knew where it ended. 

He tried to push the next memory away, but it came to him in a tidal wave of grief. There was no visual component; it felt like Kuzon might have his eyes squeezed shut. But he heard himself telling his family to leave him alone. There were adult voices, saying something like  _ “Surely not all of them?” “What about that kid that used to come by the farm?” “All of them?”  _ The only blink of sight in the memory was Kuzon slamming a door shut. Aang wasn’t dead. He refused to think Aang could be dead. He escaped, and he would be hiding. Maybe somewhere they had gone together. He was going to find him. He was going to find him.

Zuko dragged himself free from Kuzon’s thoughts, as though he were swimming towards the surface of a deep ocean. He opened his eyes, gasping for air, no longer breathing the long meditative breaths he had begun with. Aang was there, looking at him with some concern, and Zuko was overwhelmed by a nonsensical relief. He grabbed Aang by the sides of his face, just staring at arm's length. He was here. He was here and alive and safe. The  _ irony _ , Zuko thought. The stupid irony of his own obsession with finding the Avatar.

“Zuko?” Aang asked.

“Sorry,” Zuko said quickly, finally dropping his hands. “It’s just good to see you.”

“Aw, thanks buddy,” Aang said gently. He reached out and touched Zuko’s face in turn, and Zuko realized he was wiping off tears. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Zuko cleared his throat awkwardly and looked away, wiping his face on his sleeve.

“Yeah. Um. We were friends. A hundred years ago or whatever. I was your friend Kuzon.”

Aang looked delighted. 

“But Zuko, that’s amazing! That’s really, really cool! I don’t- Oh no why are you crying again?”

Zuko choked up on his next words. 

“You- you disappeared and- and-”

“Oh… no…” Aang whispered. “He never knew what happened to me. It must have been awful.”

“I don’t know what to do, where to put those feelings. He didn’t want to believe you were dead but he must have, eventually, you know. And I’m- _ I’m  _ full of all his sadness, but  _ you’re here _ . And you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” Aang repeated back. “And I’m sorry it took us so long to see each other again.”

Zuko gave a weak chuckle. “Yeah you did kind of promise.”

“Oh yeah...” Aang murmured. “Well… I’m glad you didn’t turn out to be evil?”

“Hm, right. You want to know something funny? I was worried beforehand… I was worried I was Sozin? And it was because I felt like you and I have known each other before, and I thought… him and Roku, you know? I don’t know why that’s the conclusion I jumped to… Anyway, I’m glad it’s Kuzon instead.”

“Yeah, I get it. I’m glad too.”

Zuko was starting to calm down and take deeper breaths again. But there was still so much from the few short memories that was flooding his brain.

“He really liked you,” Zuko said suddenly. He wasn’t sure why he said it, he was still embarrassed to even know it. But Aang needed to know. 

“We were great pals,” Aang agreed.

“No- I mean. I think Kuzon had… had a crush on you.” At least he had stopped crying, but now Zuko wished he could sink into the floor. Instead, his mouth seemed to keep moving of its own accord. “The whole time I was in his head, I could tell he thought you were really cute, and-”

Aang was staring at him, eyebrows raised as high as they could go. 

“Sorry,” Zuko said, flustered. “I don’t know why I told you that. That was a long time ago, for both of us- I mean, for, you and him.”

“I liked him too.” Aang was staring down at his hands now, voice quiet. It only felt more like a confession, the way he avoided Zuko’s eyes. “And it still just feels like ten years for me. Those memories don’t feel like a century ago.”

Oh.

“The first time we really talked, you told me about Kuzon.”

“I remember, yeah.”

There was a silence. It was sinking in for Zuko how recent those memories must have been for Aang. How it must have felt to be told the people of the Fire Nation were his enemies, when only  _ weeks _ before, a Fire Nation boy was his friend. His crush.

“That conversation drove me crazy. For like, four months,” Zuko said with a small chuckle. Aang finally looked up, giving him a small smile back.

“Fate plays funny little games, huh?”

“Tell me about it.”

Silence fell again, a little easier than before. There was something more Zuko needed to say but he was having trouble deciphering what it was. A feeling, stuck in his throat, lodged in place while he had watched the memories, and still too shy to come out of his mouth. Aang looked like he was chewing on a thought as well, but neither of them rushed the other.

Finally Zuko wanted to break the quiet. If the thought wasn’t going to make itself into words, so be it. He could change the topic and buy himself time to think. He opened his mouth, and Aang leaned towards him slightly.

“So do you-”

Zuko was cut off by Aang’s lips pressing softly against his. He froze, all trains of thought now gone completely. Aang’s eyes were closed, Zuko was in too much shock to shut his, and for a moment they stayed perfectly still like that. Then Aang pulled away again. He gave Zuko a questioning look, and Zuko had no answer for it except to lean in and give a slow kiss back. When they broke apart a grin spread on Aang’s face.

“Took you long enough.” 

“Took  _ you  _ long enough.”


End file.
